St. Martin Church Marriages 1655-1741 R-Z

The town of Hohnhorst is about 30 km east of the city of Hannover and just south of the Steinhuder Meer. Formerly, this area was in the Hessische Grafschaf Schaumburg which together with bordering former Schaumburg-Lippe makes up the present German Province of Schaumburg in Lower Saxony.

St. Martin Church in Hohnhorst is believed to have been started in the 13th Century. However, the present church building dates from about 1900. The church is named after St. Martin who lived in the 4th century and whose name day is November 11.

The existing records of the church go back to 1603, with a break between 1741 and 1767 for which it is believed that records exist on loose pages at the church but were not included when the records were microfilmed. The towns included in the St. Martin church parish (Kirchspiel) in the 1700's and 1800's were: Haste, Helsinghausen, Hohnhorst, Mathe, Nordbruch, Ohndorf, Rehren, and Rehrwiehe.

During the mid 1800s a number of members of the St. Martin Hohnhorst parish, as well as from the neighboring parishes at Beckedorf, Lindhorst, Idensen, Nenndorf and Apelern and others, emigrated to the United States. Many of these first located in the western part of Cook County, Illinois near the present town of Schaumburg, Illinois. However, after a few years a number moved south to farm homesteads in Will County, Illinois or Lake County, Indiana, west to Bremer County, Iowa or further to Nebraska, and north to Minnesota.

For the Marriage records of the St. Martin Church of Hohnhorst which are in part indexed below, those before about 1656 usually just give the names of the couple and the marriage date. Starting in 1656 their town of residence, is given. After about 1695 the names of the fathers are usually also given, and after 1767 the birthdate is added. The records after 1820 also give the mother's name, and after 1833 are placed in separate books for each of the towns in the parish. Finally, the records called Marriages below for 1833 to 1850 actually come from Proclamation (Banns) records. The records before 1767 are often faded with poor handwriting and very difficult to decipher. However, those after the 1841 to 1867 break are usually much easier to read.

In the indices for the marriage records which follow, the page numbers refer to Hohnhorst Churchbook Two for marriages between 1655 and 1741, to Churchbook Three for marriages between 1767 and 1821, and to Churchbook Four for marriages between 1820 and 1830. The column labeled as "No." refers to the order in which the names of the marriages were listed in the year given. The "No."s provided with most of the Residences for the 1867 to 1855 marriages is a house number.

Also note that these marriage indices are double entry, alphabetized by both husband and wife. However, the residence is given for only the first named person. For the residence of the spouse, check the place in the index where the spouse is alphabetized and named first.